Unless otherwise indicated herein, the description in this section is not itself prior art to the claims and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
One aspect of a rechargeable battery is the battery's charge current. This charge current is often expressed in relation to a C-rate to normalize against battery capacity because different batteries typically have different capacities. A C-rate is a measure of the rate at which a battery may be charged by a battery charger relative to the battery's maximum capacity. Batteries are made in a wide variety of chemistries, voltages, capacities, and charge rates. Battery chargers may be designed to work with a large number of available batteries.
Most conventional battery chargers charge typical rechargeable batteries at C-rates in a range of about 1 C to 3 C. At a 1 C rate, a conventional battery charger will ideally charge a typical battery to substantially full charge in about 1 hour. At a 3 C rate, a conventional battery charger will ideally charge a typical battery to substantially full charge in about 20 minutes.
For example, a 1000 milliampere hours (mAh) battery charged at a 1 C rate can ideally be fully charged in about one hour with a conventional battery charger with a charging current of 1000 mA. Similarly, a 1000 mAh battery charged at a 2 C rate can ideally be fully charged in about 30 minutes with a conventional battery charger with a charging current of 2000 mA, while a 1000 mAh battery charged at a 0.5 C rate would ideally be fully charged in about 2 hours with a conventional battery charger with a charging current of 500 mA.